Scene #8871: Slate Ridge Zone (Vs. Heyalexa)

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Out here, it's like nothing's changed about Quicknest at all. The fringes of the new addition to the Eggman Empire are green much more than they're steel. Squinting, Aidan can make out that the figures quarrying on the mountainside are robots rather than people, and every half-hour or so there's a surge of exhaust and noise when one of the Egg Pods is filled up with extracted natural resources and flies off to wherever it's going. In those gaps, though, it's possible to breathe in the fresh air, stand somewhere that the trees block your view of the bits of gleaming metal in town that catch the sun, survey the hilly terrain, and imagine it's all okay. That isn't what Aidan's here to do, though (A distant voice says, 'for once'). Along with every one of his allied Elites that he can rely on-- and potentially, whether he can rely on them or not, it's limited to only the ones who aren't feeling either betrayed or disappointed by him at this point-- Aidan is here to make a step towards liberating Quicknest. The amount of resources and sheer firepower that Petra has (thanks to Eggman) at her disposal is intimidating, but surely taking this first step will make it seem more manageable. There aren't an insurmountable number of robots out here; most of them are the much smaller ratbots. The town, logged barns and lived-in homes and dirt roads, situated in the creases of the valley, is barren of activity besides that which processes the conveyance of material from the depths of the mine, through the few (notably large) metal Eggman constructed buildings, and out elsewhere on the Egg Pods. Robotomized citizens, sparsely armed, work along with ratbots using antigravity hooks to transport carts of ores into the processing center, then return back into the mine, efficient and needing no breaks or sleep. The processing center, the warehouse-like metal hulk dropped into town-- certainly without regard for whatever houses might have been clustered in the area previously-- is clearly both the center of 'power', as in Petra's robot forces and dictatorial authority, and the densest area for the robotomized citizens to gather and subsequently, hopefully, be saved. Multiple stories tall, mostly bland steel but for the paired flags of Petra's rat logo draped above the wide barn-door type entrance and the matching hangar exit on the opposite side, there's really no telling from outside what the interior might look like. It's probably something boring. It's probably just a bunch of rocks and conveyor belts, automatically sorted and processed through silly little programs for maximum profit, and then apathetically shipped off to never be seen again. It looks like that kind of place. There is one piece of intel that Petra couldn't have possibly prevented Aidan and Sarracenia from gathering during the duel with Ceri: she observes her territory through ratbots carrying cameras and monitors. Whether she's observing right now is, fairly unlikely, but they're able to pick out the few camera-clad ratbots floating around town.
Aidan Proudpick	Starting at his home would have been too much. Or would it have made him properly angry? He didn't want to chance it. He had to be at full capacity. But to stand near a tree. To look out onto the world, and just for one second, listen to the distant sounds of pick against stone. At a dead silence. No one inbetween. No singing, no laughing. No shouting, no crying. Nothing. The comfort of familiar sounds is instead an icepick behind Aidan's ear. The lack of people. And know exactly where all those people are. To gaze upon their coffins. His mind tries to place them in the street, then place them in the infinite line up which he saw at the factory. A breath sucked across teeth, then a look back at Sarracenia. It's one. Maybe a few more, but ones he couldn't necessarily ask to be here. He breaks into a wide smile at her. "You ready?" He squats to the ground, pulling out a piece of paper. He already has a quick sketch of the area on him, tapping it, "Alright, this is great! This is even better than I planned. Now we don't have to do house to house warfare." His eyes cast up to the monolith of unfeeling metal and consumption, the mining warehouse. A brutalist mark on his home. "I figure we get up there, liberate whoever is inside, and use it as a forward base. Once we've established that, I can use it to house anyone we get from the Gale Empire, and I can..." he puffs out a breath, but proceeds. It's Sarracenia, so he doesn't mind being candid. "Probably convince people I'm doing something and ain't just running my mouth when I ask them for help." He pulls out his accelerator, essentially a large steampunk semi automatic rifle. A new ammo clip. Blue light swirls to life over the apparatus, some sort of engine within producing enough energy to mimic gunpowder. "Kill any ratbots you see. Be careful of the actual robots. You'll be in charge of demolitions." Another bright grin at Sarracenia, "Yer the best at that." A shot rings out. Not as loud as a gunshot, but still a PAFT of a super sonic burst that leads into a subsonic bullet that sounds like a thundercrack as Aidan runs forward. A starting gun. The first note of a song. A beginning sentence in a chapter.
Sarracenia	Sarracenia was ready to go in loud and proud and destroying everything Eggman or Petra-related in her path. Aidan...said they should go in quietly and with a plan. Although she wasn't completely happy with that, Sarra doesn't complain too much. 'You ready?' Sarracenia hmphs and smirks lightly. "I have been ready." she says, shoulder her hammer within their cover position. She listens to the plan. It isn't too much of one, which is fine by her. She nods at Aidan's ideas for the use of that factory. "It will be good to be able to show them." she agrees. 'Kill any ratbots you see. Be careful of the actual robots. You'll be in charge of demolitions. Yer the best at that." Sarracenia can't help a bit of a blush and a slightly dark giggle at that. "Well, thank you~" she says. Aidan starts things off with a rather loud shot. Sarracenia blinks, then laughs. "Loud it is, then~!" she says, then pulls out one of her power wings. In a burst of white smoke she has raccoon ears and a tail along with a flashing P on her red chestplate. She is in her battle dress after all. Then, she takes to the sky, trying to knock out as many of those camera bots, and ratbots in general, as she can.
Petra Soroka	This isn't a heavily fortified location-- when Aidan's bullet snipes a ratbot out of the sky, its explosion isn't immediately followed by return fire that casts the entire town in gunpowder-scented shade. Petra, for better or for worse, isn't Eggman (It can only be for better, if you think about it at all. But it still feel bitter to put 'Petra' and 'better' in the same thought that way.), and she doesn't have a thousand automatic turrets to defend every corner of her domain. That isn't to say there's no response at all, though. Most of the ratbots, the ones that aren't busy lifting minecarts or monitors, have person-sized hooked onto their undersides, weightlessly floating in space through the antigravity connection. Shotgun fire, laser blasts, and buzzsaws carried by rats that swoop and strafe harry the pair as they smash their way through to get to the mining facility, struck down by Sarracenia's hammer. The larger robotomized bots pose somewhat more of a challenge, if mostly because they can't just be crushed like tin cans by Sarra. Many of them have an arm replaced with a gun or laser cannon of some sort, or have extra limbs for spiked flails, missiles, and so on. There aren't too many of them outside the facility: most of their time is spent either within the quarry, or within the facility, and it's only the handful in transit between that Aidan and Sarracenia have to contend with immediately. Blasts of dirt and wood spray into the air from where explosive attacks miss, and waves of heat from nearby fire wash over them even when they dodge the attacks directly. The monitoratbots, as Sarra smacks them out of the air, make little peeps of noise that's clearly some sort of message. It isn't Petra's voice at all; instead, it sounds neutrally feminine, smooth and stilted in the way of text to speech, unbothered at how Sarracenia keeps turning its speakers into e-waste mid-word. ????: G Crunch. ????: Go Crumple. ????:Good Mor Smash. The interior of the mining warehouse is as expected, for the most part. The pair can break down and/or explode the entry doors to reveal the sterile steel space, as conveyored and factory-perfect as they could've imagined. Carry the load of ore, spill it onto one of a series of entry conveyor belts that drag it all deeper into the bowels of the industrial machine, weight-sorted, sight-sorted by robots, purity-tested, ran through checklists and shipping orders and receipts all tracked by some grand engine of efficiency that's neither visible nor comprehensible to the pair of Elites. Until, suddenly, it is. Speakers high up on the walls continue the message that Sarracenia so rudely, continuously interrupted, as pleasant as ever. ????: Good Morning ! ????: I Am Heyalexa , Your Virtual Empire Assistant ! Heyalexa: And Logistics Supervisor ! Heyalexa: Damage Has Been Detected To 90 Inch By One Hundred Twenty Six Inch Barn Door Steel Carbonized Metal Metal Barn Door Sliding Unfinished Unpainted Factory Menacing Door Times Two ! Heyalexa: Would You Like To Purchase Rowdiness Forgiveness Pass Thirty Days One Time Only Buy Now ? Heyalexa: Provide Purchase Details Before Returning To Work ! Vaguely, Sarracenia and Aidan can remember the augmented bot that Petra referred to as her 'secretary', Heyalexa. This secretary consisted of an Amazon Alexa being affixed to the head of a robotomized bot to give it the ability to move around.
Aidan Proudpick	"It will be good to be able to show them." Aidan grins at her as he turns around. "Show them," he emphasizes. He turns around, his smile fading again. The top of the hole he has to climb out seems a mile up. But rather than sit at the bottom, he has a foothold. Every pull hand over hand is one that doesn't just get him closer to his goal, but it fans the spark that was once there. At some point, Aidan really did think that Petra would not arm her ratbots with anything. Maybe because they would just be her friends and take pictures and she didn't want them to get hurt? That's an ACTUAL shotgun. Did she just PUT a shotgun on it? Aidan does what he always tells Lilian he is going to do. He tucks his head and shoulder in, rolling underneath the shotgun blast. A laser blast fires into the ground next to him, melting the ground down to a small pit of glass. The trade off, of course, is the buzzsaw getting too close. He yanks his head back just as it cuts a fine line across his shoulder, tearing through the cloth armor. When he comes back up, he sees the dozens of people who used to live here. Had he not gone through the Spire City Factory, could he have handled it? The thought takes a second too long, a moment of second guessing himself gets a spiked flail into his middle. A wheeze rushes out from his throat, blood soaking into the cloth from a few spike wounds. Aidan gets his head back into the game, swinging his shield out in a fierce arc to start bashing the robots down, pushing down weapons out of his way. He rushes in behind Sarracenia, trying to get some space between him and the missles. The thought of how much he truly hates automation brings another stab to Aidan's brain. If he gets enough, he might actually become a freedom fighting turqoise colored squirrel. Sarracenia has flight down, so he takes a leap onto one of the conveyor belts. Aidan is one of those people who does NOT wait on an escalator, he keeps going, so Aidan is already running down it as the speakers go on. "Hi, Heyalexa. Are you... are you my virtual assistant? Can you tell me where to go in this place?"
Sarracenia	The sturdier robots pose more of a challenge not just because Sarra can't just smash them, but because if she did that would be bad for someone from this town. Those that Sarracenia faces she takes the time to break them open carefully to free as many people as she can, which means she gets hit several times by various weapons. And it isn't like she is fully healed from her encounter with Ceri. One hand is still heavily bandaged, and while she has been trying to keep it hidden by her hair after the dustup with the ratbots her hair is blown to the side and Sarra is revealed to be wearing a broad black eyepatch over her left eye where an axe-shoe came dangerously close to making her one eyed in addition to the damage to her jaw. As the duly apointed demolition specialist for this op, Sarracenia definitely uses some well placed remote mines for the door. After placing one at each hinge, she waits make sure none of the roboticized citizens are close by before she pulls out the remote detonator. She hmphs, smirks, gives her long shimmering copper hair a toss, then...presses the button. In a symphony of small explosions the doors are blown off its hinges Sarracenia is a bit confused by the continued attempted speech until they enter the facility and the loud speakers kick on. She blinks a few times. "Um...Heyalexa? What kind of name is..." She huffs. "I do not wish to purchase a pass, since I do not wish to be forgiven for this. However, if you have say...a code for sale which will release all the people from within the robots in Quicknest, I will happily purchase that~" Sarracenia -could- have flight covered, but after being hit her raccoon ears and P sign are gone. So, she hops on a conveyor and pulls out another power up. This one the same green turtle plush with a white bike helmet that she used in the Galean facility. In a puff of smoke, she is in a rather garish green and yellow outfit somewhat like a certain X-Men member and almost as tight, along with a turtle shell on her back and a bike helmet. She holds up a hand and a boomerang about half her height appears in her hand. She throws it at the closest 'bot that looks like it could contain a citizen. It returns. She throws it again. Sarracenia continues this as she rides the conveyor, trying to break open as many as she can before she loses this power up, too.
Petra Soroka	Heyalexa: That's right ! I am your Virtual Assistant . Calculating route for 'Where To Go In This Place' ! Heyalexa: You may : Get off of the Conveyor Belt ! Heyalexa: You are not a Full of Texture Fifty gram Nickel-Ore Lode Solid Metal Bulk Raw Rough Stones Natural Stones Gem Mining Healing Decorative Stone for Decor Cluster Small "AAA+" Grade Charged Stones ! Heyalexa: Make a U-turn ! Heyalexa: Recalculating ! Heyalexa: Make a U-turn ! Heyalexa: Recalculating ! Heyalexa: Make a U-turn ! Heyalexa: Recalculating ! Heyalexa's endlessly patient attempts to correct Aidan's course are fruitless as he runs down the conveyor belt. Jumping over piles of ore, dodging and retaliating at helper-bots on the side of the processing system as they take swings at him, and picking out robotomized Quicknesters to single out and break free of their prisons doesn't increase Heyalexa's tonal irritation at all. Accidentally kicking a chunk of rock off of the moving belt as he runs, however, does. Heyalexa: Attempted theft detected ! Heyalexa: Merchandise has been removed from sales without authorization . Heyalexa: Criminal and or lethal charges will be pressed unless the illegal criminal perpetrator restores the value of the stolen items as well as reparations for damages done ! Heyalexa: Payment is accepted in Credit Card or subscription to our Five Year Uncompensated For Exposure Training Manual Labor Intership Trainee Program Camp . Authorities have been alerted ! Whatever Heyalexa means by 'authorities' isn't clear, unless she means Petra. It's not like there are any police in Quicknest, and the sole governmental figure in the entire country is Petra herself-- unless Heyalexa counts? In any case, if Petra was told Aidan and Sarracenia were running around one of her facilities and breaking things, she would probably be announcing herself, and she doesn't seem to be doing so at the moment. Heyalexa: I have many Codes for sale ! Heyalexa: Results for 'Code' sorted by relevancy out of one hundred thousand results : The Code (2009) ! Television Movie IMAX . Rated R . Morgan Freeman ! Heyalexa: 'Codependents Anonymous' Book Self Help Novel Principles for Managing Codependence Searching for Balance Self-Improvement by CoDA Purchase Again for Petra Soroka ? Heyalexa: Fortnite Nineteen Dollars Code for In-game Purchases ! Nineteen Dollars Purchase Code ! Please Purchase Fortnite Code . Similarly ineffectively to Sarracenia's attempts to scam Heyalexa into selling a 'free every robot in the country' button, her attempts to throw boomerangs at the robotomized bots are stymied by the still-present ratbots throwing themselves in the way, or simply hooking onto the boomerangs and launching them back. In total, the two Elites have only seen a dozen or so robotomized citizens in the town-- shockingly few, considering that there were likely thousands of residents before, and few even when considering that the majority would've been sent to the Gale Empire. There's been various small suggestions that Petra has pulled the bulk of her forces away from the outer reaches of Quicknest, though even the leftovers are a hassle, but there's no indication why. Deeper into the facility, as the pair run along the conveyor belts, more durable defenses start to show themselves. Almost arbitrary cannon turrets, set up on the interior of the building, open fire on them, peppering them with explosives and gunfire. Anytime that an explosive knocks more rock off of the conveyor belt, Heyalexa blames them for it, and her 'reprimands' consist of bombs being dropped out of slots in the ceiling. Heyalexa: Criminal Charges are approaching felony status ! Heyalexa: Please avoid becoming felons , or I will not be able to help you ! Heyalexa: Felon transformation Seventy Percent Complete ! Seventy Five ! Eighty !
Aidan Proudpick	Every time Aidan has to think about that, it's another jab into his heart. But he grabs every failure, now, and holds it tight. It's a stepping stone. A goal. A chance to show them all. One of the many benefits of being a squirrel is flexibility. He grabs on top of a rock and hunches himself, using hands and feet to scrabble and jump over rocks with ease. A tuck and roll forward, a slam into another robot with a down thrust of his shield. "Where's Petra..." He opens his mouth to say something stupid on purpose, realizes how terrible an idea that is, and snaps his teeth shut again. She probably WOULD be locked onto the sound of him saying something dumb or extremely deep and personal and WOULD be on the radio in a second. Aidan turns back towards Sarracenia, "What is she even doing here?" He looks forward again, "Where does this stuff go. Is she building something?" He is perplexed more than harboring the belief that Petra could possibly be adrift aimlessly. "Anyone with THIS MANY resources hasta be doing something, right?" Aidan realizes he isn't even sure they are going in the correct direction, but action is action. He'll deal with the consequences later. "I'll block, you do what you are best at!" The shield comes forward, red energy swirling out and then forming a curtain as Aidan acts as Shieldprincess. What laser shots he can catch simply slide down the curtain, and what bombs he can simply are thrown back behind him by the sheeting red energy. Those that DO hit him plow through the meat of his ankle, taking out a chunk of it. His teeth bare in pain. Both hands throw upward, and a wall of wind pushes upward, a hasty attempt to throw the bombs back UP the chutes as they charge down the conveyor belts.
Sarracenia	Ratbots weren't the target of her attacks, and Sarracenia ends up letting out an annoyed 'nnnng' as they just keep getting hit. "Cut it out! Can you not see I am -trying- to save people here!" she exclaims to the ratbots. Perhaps it is for the best that the turtle outfit is soon gone thanks to explosions and cannon shots. "Wh-why are there more and better weapons as we go?! Should these not have been outside?!" Heyalexa offers some very not helpful products. Even the codependant book wouldn't help. Sarra has no one to be codependent on! "No, Heyalexa! An Egg robot liberation code!" She pauses a moment. "Oh! Do you happen to know if there is a release button on the robots, Heyalexa?" The continued messages of becoming a felon make Sarra frown lightly. "Not that I care much if I am considered a criminal here...but we are not even the ones disturbing the ore! Tell your fellow robots to be careful where they aim! And this is not even a sales area!" Aidan takes up a spot as a living shield, and Sarra takes advantage of it. "As you wish~" she says to Aidan. She leaps onto onto a larger rock of ore, then she goes into a spin. She starts tossing up Bullet Bills, one after the other. And one after the other, they are hammered like artillery shells toward the various cannons and bomb bays around the facility. "It is Petra. I would not be surprised if this ore is simply being disposed of in some way so that if...er..when! you do free this place there is nothing left to mine." Sarracenia pauses at the question of where Petra is. "...she thinks we are both useless. If she even knows we are here she may not even bother showing up."
Petra Soroka	There's something to be said about the idea of a 'correct direction' at all. There's no beating heart at the center of a distribution warehouse, to be excised so that the lone heroes can watch its pulse slow to a stop, solving the whole vast issue in one strike. Similarly, blowing up Petra's castle would do little besides making her set up in a neighboring building instead. Unfortunately, there's no button to press, no computer to dramatically behead or shut down, no code to input that would free even this tiny little town at once. There is only the facility, and the mine, and the people and defenses within. Going deeper into the warehouse solves only the problem of needing to destroy the defenses deeper within the warehouse as well as those outside, if they want it to be usable as a safehouse. Petra's inexperience as a supervillain-- or, perhaps, her acute experience with a type of generic supervillain whose influence she draws upon often when talking about utilizing the power of 'Earth'-- means she has failed to encode a shortcut into toppling the entire system simultaneously. File a complaint about it to Heyalexa, if you want. Heyalexa: I'm sorry, I can't provide you an answer for 'Is she building something?' . Heyalexa: That information is inaccessible without Platinum Security Clearance Subscription Premium Tier Try Two Weeks Half Price Renewed Yearly . Heyalexa: Hurry ! Felons do not have access to this Very Good Deal . Please give me your Credit Card . Fast . Felons are also the target of many explosives and bullets! Aidan can take most of them on Aegis, but the three-dimensional nature of being inside of a building full of robots and turrets means that he can't protect from every direction at once. At the same time that he's distracted blocking a cannon that's leveled a direct shot across the lane of the conveyor belt, a ratbot carrying a cardboard box hovers above Sarracenia's head. Heyalexa: Extra-Long 14 Inch Spike Trap for Indoors/Outdoors Same Day Delivery ! Heyalexa: One thousand plus bought in past month . Save more with subscribe and save ! Predictably, when the box drops onto Sarracenia, it contains a spike trap. Whether its advertised length and outdoors effectiveness is true isn't something she can verify, but the spikes certainly are. At this point in the facility, the pair of them have to hop between criss-crossing conveyor belts to avoid being sucked into whatever processing-and-sorting machines are along the track they're currently on, and doing so reveals that there's more spike traps to be found, moving along the belt to surprise them if they jump without looking. Heyalexa: Your search for 'Egg Robot Liberation Code' returned very few results . Use fewer keywords ? Heyalexa: Did you mean : Egg Two Dozen Carton Free Range Organic ? Egg , Purchase Singular Same Day Shipping ? Did you mean Egg Robot Doctor Eggman Robotomized Bot Panel Opening Freedom Liberation Button ? Heyalexa: Shop now ? Please . Felon status may be deferred with sufficient recent purchasing history . As obnoxious as fighting through the seemingly endless series of robots is, it is only seemingly endless. In terms of an Eggman-constructed building, this one is by far on the smaller end, so there comes a point where the flying Egg Pods at the end of the processing lines come into view. Destroying those would prevent any more of these resources from reaching Petra, and there's a swarm of ratbots and a few robotomized Quicknesters attending them to load sorted material into them for shipping.
Aidan Proudpick	It was... not what Aidan expected. It was nothing like Aidan expected. He protected innocent lives. He had protected hundreds of lives at this point, but never had to be a two man army. Battered. Bloodied. Aidan staggers out of the smoking shell of the factory, military carrying Sarracenia, ignoring several laser marks on his body. He did think there would be a big red button. He did think this would be something they would survive with no trouble. He almost thought this would be... easy. He had forgotten how strong everyone else was. He had forgotten that doing doesn't necessarily mean surviving. Bombs, laser turrets, spike traps. Wounds across his head, across his stomach, blood and grime coating his fur. They had both struggled and scrabbled for that victory. Everything he could possibly drag out of himself. Another test barely passed. Another failure of the mind. Another narrative he built up in his head. A victory. A victory won in blood. A victory won by a two person army. Aidan got Sarracenia down to a safe place, looking at the weary people. Just a handful. It was only a start, Aidan had to remind himself, the bare minimum.